I can't describe well how this makes me feel - a combination of wistfulness, wonder, greedy technical and historical curiosity as powerful as lust, and a tinge of fear at the historical...
Exemplary
I can't describe well how this makes me feel - a combination of wistfulness, wonder, greedy technical and historical curiosity as powerful as lust, and a tinge of fear at the historical shibboleths invoked.
I was four years old, and still remember the grainy black-and-white images - the tinny, breathless chatter punctuated with the tuneless heartbeat beeps of the time signal - the laser-focused people doing delicate, mysterious, and terrifying things, faces lit by flickering screens, during the TV broadcast of the Moon landing. July 24 should be an international holiday, a reverent celebration of the first time humanity got its scientific and technical power lined up for a visit to another stellar body.
But the dark side is that the renewed exploration of space is still fueled by nationalism and militarism. The Johnson Control Center has its uglier Cold War siblings in nuclear missile launch control sites, which the article doesn't mention.
You can also visit the historically preserved Titan ICBM Launch Control Center. I also remember the decades of dread, the constant spectre of rocket thunder ending in mushroom clouds. [It hasn't gone away, we just found more effective distractions.]
Imperial claims of solar system territory and property for commercial exploitation, strategic use of the "High Frontier", remain as threats not constrained by enforced agreements.
The reopening of the restored Johnson Control Center will undoubtedly be used as a patriotic talking point; a chauvinistic, backward-looking symbol of when America was great.
To me, reading this explains why the control room has been treated so badly. I live in Philadelphia, and find that when you see Independence Hall every single day, it is very easy to overlook just...
Like the Oval Office, or the Assembly Room of Independence Hall, mission control is a distinctly American room — one so ingrained into culture that to say its name is to conjure it crisply in the mind, as though you had been there, even worked there.
To me, reading this explains why the control room has been treated so badly. I live in Philadelphia, and find that when you see Independence Hall every single day, it is very easy to overlook just how significant that building is. I celebrate July 4th every year with fireworks and BBQ, but very rarely do I think about how this city is the entire reason we celebrate it. It's really hard to see something that is part of your daily life as a historic icon.
It's probably the same for the people who work at Johnson. when you walk by the control room every single day, it's easy to forget how important it is. So I can see people saying something like, "That control room is quiet and has comfy chairs, would be a nice place to have lunch."
I can't describe well how this makes me feel - a combination of wistfulness, wonder, greedy technical and historical curiosity as powerful as lust, and a tinge of fear at the historical shibboleths invoked.
I was four years old, and still remember the grainy black-and-white images - the tinny, breathless chatter punctuated with the tuneless heartbeat beeps of the time signal - the laser-focused people doing delicate, mysterious, and terrifying things, faces lit by flickering screens, during the TV broadcast of the Moon landing. July 24 should be an international holiday, a reverent celebration of the first time humanity got its scientific and technical power lined up for a visit to another stellar body.
But the dark side is that the renewed exploration of space is still fueled by nationalism and militarism. The Johnson Control Center has its uglier Cold War siblings in nuclear missile launch control sites, which the article doesn't mention.
You can also visit the historically preserved Titan ICBM Launch Control Center. I also remember the decades of dread, the constant spectre of rocket thunder ending in mushroom clouds. [It hasn't gone away, we just found more effective distractions.]
Imperial claims of solar system territory and property for commercial exploitation, strategic use of the "High Frontier", remain as threats not constrained by enforced agreements.
The reopening of the restored Johnson Control Center will undoubtedly be used as a patriotic talking point; a chauvinistic, backward-looking symbol of when America was great.
To me, reading this explains why the control room has been treated so badly. I live in Philadelphia, and find that when you see Independence Hall every single day, it is very easy to overlook just how significant that building is. I celebrate July 4th every year with fireworks and BBQ, but very rarely do I think about how this city is the entire reason we celebrate it. It's really hard to see something that is part of your daily life as a historic icon.
It's probably the same for the people who work at Johnson. when you walk by the control room every single day, it's easy to forget how important it is. So I can see people saying something like, "That control room is quiet and has comfy chairs, would be a nice place to have lunch."